Mohammed Atif Siddique was jailed under the terrorism act
But he was also a model student
Not everything is black and white...

BY MICHAEL DOTT

(dunkmagazine@hotmail.co.uk)

On a sunny Wednesday lunchtime, Stop Climate Chaos held a rally outside the Holyrood parliament, while 100 yards away carers protested about poverty.

Despite the overwhelmingly peaceful attitude and situation, a significant force of riot police were seen, perhaps underlying the jitteriness that the state views the cliamte change issue.

A 17-year-old Scots-born woman arrested during the G20 protests in London appeared in court for sentencing this morning and received 8 months under a "referral order".

Police Firearms officers are now to be deployed in plain clothes, in unmarked cars.

What could possibly go wrong?

• Scotland on Sunday

On 19.01.2009 two activists were killed. One of them, Stanislaw Markelow was a famous political lawyer. The other victim is Anastasia Barburowa, journalist, who was walking togeter with Markelow.

A man has died of a heart attack after being taken to a cash machine by a court bailiff.

"The bailiff called at his house in India Street on 7 January and persuaded him to get into his car and go to Accrington town centre.
The father-of-five collapsed on his way to a cash machine while the bailiff parked and waited for the money."

• BBC website

Community Service workers employed by Glasgow City Council have been out on indefinite strike since Monday 5th January. The dispute is over "regrading", giving the workers less money for more work. The following text is from a leaflet distributed by strikers at last Saturday's Gaza demo.

On the 25th of November 2008 at Forfar Sheriff's Court in Scotland I was placed on trial for “Perverting The Course of Justice by absconding from lawful custody”. Despite my already serving a life sentence with no foreseeable time of release, the prison and prosecuting authorities in Scotland were determined to make an example of me following a high-profile manhunt for me last summer that ended with a massive armed police operation to re-capture me that was completely unprecedented in the apprehension of an absconder from an open jail.

"THE Police Complaints Commissioner has voiced fears that there could be a 'potentially serious systemic failure' within a Scottish force that would damage the delivery of justice.

He said Lothian and Borders Police had filtered the information it passed on to the Procurator Fiscal. He added that officers up to Deputy Chief Constable Tom Halpin appeared to be of the view this practice was acceptable."

• Scotsman
• Glasgow Herald

More funny business emerging at the inquest into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. "The surveillance log was altered to add the word 'not', completely changing its meaning," by an anonymous officer "Laurence".

• Glasgow Herald